Office of Back of House

Abstract

Office of Back of House (OoBoH, pronounced “ooh-boo”), is an architectural practice that operates at the intersection of ducts, conduits, scaffolding, custodial carts, mechanical rooms and sheds. OoBoH conducts design experiments in and around these maintenance objects and spaces typically separated from “architecture-proper.” By looking at the regulations, funding initiatives, zoning amendments and energy consumption routines that rule these spaces, OoBoH questions the boundaries that separate them from the “front of house” to begin with. These “back of house” spaces exist right inside the thick poché line that bounds what is thought to be the domain of design. Back of house (BoH) is dictated by an obscured regime of maintenance processes, and by leveraging these currently unexamined spaces, OoBoH believes that they can become the site for tactical design interventions and new visions of maintenance culture. OoBoH is an attempt at entering architecture from the back door, re-characterizing existing buildings as dependent on the spaces and labor often hidden behind pastiche and façade.